OCTOBER 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Fox News’ Erin Perrine. I thought I’d seen everything from this campaign, but “Donald Trump has firsthand experience with COVID-19 and Joe Biden doesn’t” has to be the wackiest political spin ever. Trump campaign aid Erin Perrine was on Fox News this month and, man, these are some mental gymnastics. We’re not talking Simone Biles here. More like the Dude’s landlord.

The real cray-cray starts at around 4:35:

PERRINE: “And listen, he has experience as commander in chief, he has experience as a businessman, he has experience now fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences — Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those. He doesn’t know what it’s like to create a job other than Hunter’s. Joe Biden doesn’t know what it’s like to have to stand up and serve as commander in chief of this country. Joe Biden’s been more worried about China than he has been about the United States. Those firsthand experiences are what are going to get President Trump four more years.”

To sum up: Joe Biden doesn’t have the experience of declaring bankruptcies, stiffing students a pay-for-degree private college, losing more money in a decade that probably anyone else in the U.S., illegally shaking down other countries to try to convince them to interfere in our election, paying women for silence, or stupidly contracting a virus because he refused to take even the simplest preventive measures.

So, because Donald Trump has been a fuckup his entire life, you have to VOTE TRUMP!

Makes total sense, right?

2. Vice President Mike Pence and Immigration Czar Stephen Miller. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had initially refused to give in to a Trump administration demand to use the pandemic as an excuse to block asylum-seekers at the southern border, the Associated Press reports. There was no valid public health reason to do so, a top expert at the agency said. But, it’s the noted white supremacist in charge of U.S. immigration policy who got the final word.

Stephen Miller had been itching for a public health crisis as a pretext to implement more of his racist agenda. He got it in COVID-19—and he wasn’t about to let it go just because the CDC cited facts and figures to say no. Facing pressure from Miller, it was Mike Pence who then contacted CDC director Robert Redfield to demand he “use the agency’s special legal authority in a pandemic anyway,” the report said. “That was a Stephen Miller special,” a former Pence aide is quoted saying. “He was all over that.”

The AP reports that on the call with Pence to pressure Redfield was unlawfully appointed acting Department of Homeland Security Sec. Chad Wolf, who apparently doesn’t have time to address white supremacist terror threats facing the nation, but has plenty of time to block children fleeing violence from seeking asylum in the U.S. “They forced us,” one former official claimed to the AP. “It is either do it or get fired.”

But the right thing would have been to refuse to sign it. Redfield ignored not just his own agency in giving in to Pence and Miller’s political demand, but hundreds of experts who said that the public health order is not only not based in fact and will harm vulnerable people but is also blatantly unlawful.

“Legal guidance issued by the U.N. Refugee Agency (‘UNHCR’) on asylum protections in the COVID-19 pandemic makes clear that the U.S. may not put in place measures that categorically deny people seeking protection an effective opportunity to ask for asylum,” hundreds of experts told him in May. “Expelling refugees to countries where their lives or freedom are at risk, or transferring them to countries where they cannot find effective refugee protection, violates U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention, its Protocol and the Convention Against Torture.”

The U.S. has expelled nearly 150,000 people since March under the order, the AP reported, including nearly 9,000 children. Nine thousand children. “Many have been returned to dangerous and violent conditions in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala,” and have reportedly been kicked out in such a rapid and reckless manner that some have been “virtually impossible to find after being expelled. This has been a crime in every way possible.

Naturally, the administration is denying the AP’s report. “Pence’s spokeswoman Katie Miller, who is Stephen Miller’s wife, called the account of the phone call ‘false.’” Ah yes, the same Katie Miller who reportedly once admitted to journalist Jacob Soboroff that “DHS sent me to the border to see the separations myself to try to make me more compassionate, but it didn't work." Totally normal people in control of the federal government here, folks.

The Trump administration is currently being challenged in court on Miller’s order exploiting the pandemic, but every day this fight drags out is another day the administration continues to deny a child their right to seek protection here. And also remember Pence gave this order to expel children back to danger as he also campaigns as a pro-lifer. And this from a God-fearing, evangelical.

3. South Carolina Senator Lyndsey Graham. The Friday night debate scheduled between Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison was given a quick makeover after Graham—who was potentially exposed to COVID-19 at a White House event—refused to take a COVID-19 test. But just because the debate continued as a pair of forums with the candidates in different locations, fielding questions sequentially, that didn’t keep Graham from spreading something vile to every viewer in South Carolina.

Asked what should be done about systemic racism in South Carolina and specifically about racial violence by police, Graham denied that the problem exists. “Do I believe that our cops are systemically racist?” Graham. Responded, “No.”

Then he explained that “if you are a young African-American, an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state, you just need to be conservative not liberal."

Graham’s answer followed that of his young African American opponent. “Just as slavery was ended,” said Harrison, “we can end the epidemic of police brutality in this country and root out the systemic racism that oppresses communities of color across South Carolina and our entire country.”

Graham would be the same candidate who in 2016 described Donald Trump as a “race-bating, xenophobic bigot.” But since then, Graham has had a revelation—one that makes it clear he can only be returned to the Senate if he captures 100% support from the deeply racist Trump base. And since Graham has never been about anything other than Graham, in racist season Graham … has moved ever deeply more racist.

It’s not clear at this point if Graham is accidentally saying “the quiet parts out loud,” or if he’s just knowingly signaling that he’s all in with the white sheet crowd. The effect is pretty much the same.

Graham did not explain how Blacks would display their official “not uppity” status to gain free passage around South Carolina by showing they were agreeable participants in their own repression. Maybe it would be a card. Maybe MAGA hats. Or maybe there would be checkpoints to root out the liberals among them.

4. Utah Senator Mike Lee. Turns out anti-democracy is part of the current GOP’s DNA. Utah’s Mike Lee went a step further on Twitter when he made the factually true but boldly un-politician comment that the U.S. is not actually a democracy.

He's right in many ways, including how the Electoral College can subvert the popular will, the small state bias in the Senate, and unequal number of constituents in congressional districts, but Lee wasn't talking about these un-democratic features as a problem. He was talking about the idea of democracy -- the majority of people ruling themselves -- as an abhorrence: "Democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity (sic) are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that."

Those words might sound really smart when you're reading the Federalist Papers and arguing with your college government professor. They sound absolutely fascist when you're a US senator and your President is threatening to ignore election results. Or when people are dying from a pandemic and idiots are complaining about their freedom to not wear a face mask.

It's "rank?" Democracy, when the people choose? That's only true when you're afraid of what the people will say. What Lee's arguing, it seems, is that a majority of the smelly people will stand in the way of what's best for the non-smelly people, which is completely in tune with a patrician view of slaveholders angry at paying taxes to a foreign king. But only the patrician view remains today. The king is gone. And the people -- all of the people -- want their say.

Lee's wrapping his anti-democracy in the flag as some kind of civic duty even as his party is actively trying to make it harder for other people -- the "rank" ones -- to vote.

"Government is the official use of coercive force—nothing more and nothing less," Lee said in another tweet. "The Constitution protects us by limiting the use of government force."

That's true from a philosophical standpoint. But it's also true the Constitution was written by slave owners who actively tried to make sure that other people weren't treated as people. Its principles are far from unimpeachable. And the current state of the US government suggests some updates could help.

For Lee, who was first elected to office with the Tea Party wave in 2010, to publicly go anti-democracy is actually kind of refreshing at the same time that it's nauseating. It's in line with the government-is-your-enemy school of thought that the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court will defend even as the country tilts in the other direction.

How can the human condition flourish? The world will have to confront climate change. Everyone could have health insurance. Assault rifles would be banned. Everyone could vote.

Those are the things "rank democracy" might prefer if it were given a say. Instead, there's Mitch McConnell and the Senate filibuster -- which also isn't in the Constitution -- Lee and his colleagues will keep using to stand in the way of climate change legislation, universal health care. Gun control and voting rights.

Lee and his GOP colleagues like to champion individual rights, like the right to not wear a mask. How has that gone?

5. Billings, Montana Public Schools. The fact-adverse, anti-science Trump Administration has pushed many crackpot ideas about how best to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, like ingesting disinfectant, but leave it to the Billings, Montana school board to take the top prize for absurdity. The district came up with an idea that has left public health experts shaking their heads: reshuffling students in the classroom four times an hour.

The “musical chairs” strategy is based on the definition of “close contact” requiring quarantine—being within 6 feet of an infected person for 15 minutes or more. If the students are moved around within that time, their thinking goes, no one will have had “close contact” and be required to stay home if a classmate tests positive.

Infectious disease experts say the moving around idea is not only absurd, but actually more likely to increase transmission of the virus by exposing more people to an infected student. It will also complicate contact tracing efforts.

Red state responses to COVID-19 have ranged from head-in-the-sand denial to outright defiance of evidence-based practice or sound scientific policy, evidenced by the explosion of infected persons in these areas. Montana, which has had relatively few Covid cases, appears determined to catch up with their colleagues.

I thought duck-and-cover drills when I was in elementary school were ridiculous, but at least they didn’t make the threat of nuclear war worse.

6. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn. Perhaps Cornyn is a better candidate for a monthly deceitful, double-talking, hypocrisy award, but taken together this certainly qualifies him for a monthly IGGY. Getting desperate in his suddenly very competitive Texas race against MJ Hegar, Cornyn is trying to distance himself from the increasingly unpopular President Trump. Following the latest chapter in his “I’ve actually opposed the president behind the scenes, no seriously” saga. He’s offering a new doozy.

First, Cornyn claimed that he’s actually supported legalization for undocumented youth, even though he’s given thumbs down to it on the Senate floor. Then he claimed he’s actually been fighting for them behind the scenes, but just hadn’t said anything publicly. Now in another boldfaced lie, Cornyn claims he actually opposed Donald Trump’s wall swindling, but just privately. “Cornyn’s voting record and public statements show the exact opposite,” immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice said in a statement. Shocking.

Cornyn wanted the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board to know “that Actually, he has ‘disagreed’ with Donald Blowhard Corruption Magnet on at least several important Republican things during these last four years. It is just that he did it in ‘private,’ like opposing the Trumpster’s racist wall.

The truth is that when Cornyn had an actual chance to stand up to Trump and oppose his wall swindling using the power of his Senate vote, conman Cornyn collapsed like the wall itself.

“In September 2019, Congress attempted to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration and 12 Senate Republicans voted against Trump, but Senator Cornyn was not among them,” America’s Voice said. “Instead, he sided with Trump and voted against the joint resolution. Cornyn then was conveniently absent for the October 2019 Senate vote seeking to overturn President Trump’s veto of the joint resolution.”

Oh, John. John, John. We know that you like to portray yourself as a serious voice in the Senate (and having Ted Cruz serving alongside you certainly helps you a lot in that, lucky you), but to spout these ridiculous and easily disprovable lies at Texans makes you no different than the impeached president who spouts lies at all Americans every day. He lies to us because he thinks we’re stupid and he can get away with it, and that’s what you’re doing to Texans too. Texas deserves better, America’s Voice Texas-based campaigns manager Mario Carrillo said.

“The simplest explanation is usually the right one: John Cornyn is in a tough re-election fight in a rapidly diversifying and competitive Texas and he knows the unpopularity of his real record of opposing Dreamers and siding with Trump in stealing military money to build the stupid wall,” Carrillo said. “It’s another classic ‘Cornyn Con,’ mixed in with mountains of hypocrisy, cowardice and lies.”

The race for U.S. Senate in Texas has gotten a lot hotter than incumbent Cornyn ever imagined at the outset of this cycle. Despite Cornyn and his Republican senate colleagues now painting Trump as the monster that escaped from the lab, Cornyn’s Democratic challenger MJ Hegar is breathing down his neck in her bid to unseat him. In fact, a Public Policy Polling survey released Friday finds Hegar trailing by just 49-46, owing significantly to advantage of 55-34 among independent voters.

_____________________

And the winner is . . .

With due respect to the charlatan Cornyn, I have to confer a long overdue IGGT to the despicable Lyndsay Graham.